Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Of course, there is more to Western civilization than
Europe. Still, Europe is one of two central loci of the civilization. If
European culture collapses under a wave of Muslim immigrants, we in America will have a
problem.

Writing in The Federalist, John Daniel Davidson (via Maggie’sFarm) reminds us of a prophetic 1973 novel by a Frenchman, Jean Raspail. It’s
title, The Camp of the Saints.

In his book Raspail described how Europe was invaded and
eventually transformed by an army of unarmed immigrants. They did not come to
contribute. They did not come to work and achieve. They did not come to adapt
to the local culture. They wanted to preserve their culture and to take what
they did not earn.

Davidson describes the novel:

All of
this calls to mind a 1973 novel by French writer Jean Raspail—The Camp of the Saints, an
apocalyptic tale about the collapse of European civilization. Much of it could
be lifted from the news coming out of Europe. In the book, one million
impoverished Indians make their way by boat from the Ganges to the shores of
southern France with no intention of adopting French ways; they come simply to
claim for themselves what Europeans have and they do not.

Why do the Europeans accept this cultural colonization. The
reason is: Western guilt. It presents itself as compassionate feelings for the
world’s downtrodden and tells us that we are responsible for their failures and that we owe them recompense.

Didn’t Bernie Sanders proclaim yesterday that we have a
right to health care because we are human beings? A noble sentiment, no doubt,
but the question was really about the constitution? Where in the constitution,
Bret Baier should have asked, does it say that we have a right to health care?

The Sanders shuffle, commonplace in the humanitarian left,
is a dodge. True enough, we are all human beings, but that only means that we
belong to the human species. You do not have to do anything to be a human
being. And there is nothing you can do that will cause you to be expelled from
the human species. Thus, identifying yourself and everyone else as human is a recipe for amorality.

Yet, all human beings belong to groups. They all
follow rules and principles laid down by cultures. The multicultural left would
have it that all cultures are created equal because all human beings are
created equal. It’s a grand cosmopolitan vision.

It sounds perfectly innocent and innocuous, until the moment
comes when the West is invaded by Muslims who reject the values of our
civilization, values that are held by both the left and the right. At that
point, we discover that this mushy humanitarian cosmopolitanism has softened us
up and prepared us to be occupied by an alien culture.

It is, as I have often remarked, a guilt culture. If all
people are equal and if some do better than others, then those who do better
are cheats and thieves and oppressors. If other civilizations have failed, we
who have succeeded are at fault. Being guilty, we must be punished or we must
do penance. One way is to allow people from alien civilizations to molest
Western women with impunity.

Davidson explains the point Raspail makes in his novel:

Unwilling
to turn away the Ganges fleet for what they claim is universal brotherhood and
compassion—but is in fact Western guilt—the government and all the country’s
major institutions agree the migrants must be welcomed as a matter of moral
duty and penance for France’s past sins. When the armada finally makes
landfall, French society breaks down, exhausted and acquiescent, passively
colonized by an unarmed army of castaways.

Like Angela Merkel, the French officials fictionalized in
Raspail’s novel believe that the refugees are “citizens of the world.” (Where
have we heard that before?) It sounded innocent enough when Barack Obama
intoned it in Germany. How is it working out now that Germany has let in over a
million refugees? But, the guilt culture tells us that we have no right to be judgmental,
to say that our Western civilization is better and that their culture is worse.

In Davidson’s words:

When
news of the Ganges fleet—a hundred derelict ships each with a thousand wretched
passengers—reaches France, government officials call a press conference to
express their solidarity.

“Far be
it from us to pass judgment,” one choked up minister says. “Far better to think
of these poor, homeless souls as citizens of the world, in search of their
promised land.” Calling for an international commission to provide the fleet
with food and supplies, the minister cautions that, “Whatever qualms some of us
may have about the outcome of an affair unparalleled in its desperation, we are
duty-bound to keep them to ourselves, and to say for all to hear: ‘These men
are my brothers!’”

Strangely, those who are most vocal in defending cultural
aliens, which does not only include Mrs. Merkel, but also the multiculturalist left, will see their own rights, the right to free expression, the
rights of women, the rights of homosexuals, the rights of Jews… severely
circumscribed by the marauding army that refuses to adapt to the local culture.

After all, it was only yesterday that a Sharia patrol beat a
man senseless in Vienna, Austria. The man’s crime: he told the patrol to stop
harassing his wife and daughter over their dress.

Austrians
fear parts of Vienna are becoming no-go areas after a father was attacked by a
'Sharia patrol' when he told them to stop threatening his wife and daughter for
not being correctly dressed.

As
various factions of migrants stake claims to territory in the city, it has been
reported that the self-styled Sharia patrols have been visiting clubs and bars
in the Millennium City area to make sure Chechen women were properly dressed
and acting appropriately.

However,
when one Austrian man tried to step in to stop the patrol from hassling his
Chechen wife and daughter, he ended up being hospitalised.

Today, the Daily Mail reports that a town in northern Sweden has warned women not to go out alone after dark. The cause: multiple sexual assaults perpetrated by non-Swedish men. Other cities and towns in Europe have issued similar warnings. So much for women's freedom to travel. The question that Raspail posed in his novel and that Davidson asks in his
column is this: can Europe assert the value of its own civilization? Can it
accept that its civilization and its culture are better than others? Can it
defend its civilization and culture against those who would exploit its weakness—it’s
guilt—in order to destroy it from within.

Davidson concludes:

In the
long term, Europe can either prefer its own civilization and culture, and
defend it, or capitulate to another. But it cannot, as the novel tells it,
absorb masses of unassimilated members of another culture and expect to
survive. It will be changed forever, and the change will be in the direction of
the immigrants’ way of life, and away from that of the native-born. This is a
difficult truth to accept in our egalitarian age.

"Where in the constitution, Bret Baier should have asked, does it say that we have a right to health care?" Where does it say we can FORCE someone to provide that health care?

"It sounds perfectly innocent and innocuous, until the moment comes when the West is invaded by Muslims who reject the values of our civilization, values that are held by both the left and the right." Really? I think the Left does not value our civilization's values. I see no evidence of it.

"It is, as I have often remarked, a guilt culture. If all people are equal and if some do better than others, then those who do better are cheats and thieves and oppressors."This is what the Left proclaims. (But does not apply to themselves.)

It makes sense that leftists hate Christianity - their idol is the state. Combine that with their works righteous Social Justice Goodwill, balanced with the Pharisaic legalist belief that everyone is equal, well you see the result. The nail that stands up – gets hammered down.

Leo G: The Progressives cannot accept any traditional religion because religion believes in a personal God. Progressives want to play God, and want you to pay for it. Shaun F is correct: the all-knowing, all-benevolent state is their church, their intellectual leaders are their priests, "progress" is their theology. And of course, all these ideas institutions are bound to the Progressive will and agenda. They are Pharisees, but believe economics and law do not not apply them. They're exempt. Because they are virtuous and noble. Their currency is intentions, not results. It's a bunch of B.S., from top to bottom. A fantasy. Their aim is to create heaven on earth, and they're playing God. Pretty cool gig, huh?

"Didn’t Bernie Sanders proclaim yesterday that we have a right to health care because we are human beings?"

I am waiting for someone to ask Bernie Sanders what WORK -- difficult, labored, tangible work -- he will perform in service of providing all these things he believes are magically begotten by proclaiming the "rights." His concept of "rights" demand a burden on others. They are not inalienable. They require the performance of others. So I am waiting for Bernie to be questioned about what service HE will perform -- other than talking about others' responsibilities and duties -- to create and deliver what he wants for America.

As for where it is the Constitution, I think we are making a wild presumption: that Senator Sanders gives a crap about the Constitutikn, other than using our constitutional rights as a means to create the Marxist heaven on earth he believes in.

I have read "Camp of the Saints" and highly recommend it to everyone. Raspail's vision is prophetic. And it is based in the "white guilt" the guilty, decadent, slothful white professors have been peddling on college campuses since the end of WWII. It's even more humorous that the Southern Poverty Law Center has the book on its quasi-forbidden list as racist, as they have with the Sultan Knish blog.

Our Western intellectual centres are seminaries for the propagation of the guilt culture, which is a religion. Their enemy? "Mean people."

"Why do the Europeans accept this cultural colonization. The reason is: Western guilt. It presents itself as compassionate feelings for the world’s downtrodden and tells us that we are responsible for their failures and that we owe them recompense."

I continue to believe that the "guilt" explanation is flawed. Sure, there are some "progressives" who feel personally guilty, but in most cases, they're asserting a claim to moral superiority and they believe that *the rest of us* should feel guilty.

"But, the guilt culture tells us that we have no right to be judgmental, to say that our Western civilization is better and that their culture is worse."

I cannot understand why people do not see that this kind of stuff is self-referentially and self-evidently nonsense.

A culture doesn't necessarily have to be better or worse, it just has to be recognized as different, and that people must make choices to keep their culture intact. This multi-culti phony celebration of "diversity" is trendy because it's cowardly, it makes no demands. It's just... nice.

The true Leftist, the true believer, desires power as much as those he condemns. But he is much more resourceful and shameless in his tactics.

So it's all phony, a ruse. What is evident: the guilt is collective, not individual. And, given that they are not participants in the "wrong" committed, the condemnation is impersonal. It's the dark, shadowy, ever-present "they" who did it... whatever "it" is. It's a detached catharsis.

In other words, therapy as both a strategy and a tactic. You never have to get with it, or get with the program, and be productive. It's more theory, more speculation, more condemnation. The solution? Government allocation of resources. Because we know more government always works.

Stuart: Didn’t Bernie Sanders proclaim yesterday that we have a right to health care because we are human beings? A noble sentiment, no doubt, but the question was really about the constitution? Where in the constitution, Bret Baier should have asked, does it say that we have a right to health care?

I wondered about that too. But if we want to find the source of this "right" we have ask how and when hospitals are allowed to reject patients who can't pay.

http://law.freeadvice.com/malpractice_law/hospital_malpractice/hospital-patients.htm-----Privately-owned hospitals may turn away patients in a non-emergency, but public hospitals cannot refuse care. Public hospitals, funded by taxpayer dollars, are held to a different standard than privately owned for-profit hospitals. This means that a public hospital is the best option for those without health insurance or the means to pay for care.

Public and private hospitals alike are prohibited by law from denying a patient care in an emergency. The Emergency Medical and Treatment Labor Act (EMTLA) passed by Congress in 1986 explicitly forbids the denial of care to indigent or uninsured patients based on a lack of ability to pay. It also prohibits unnecessary transfers while care is being administered and prohibits the suspension of care once it is initiated, provisions that prevent dumping patients who cannot pay on other hospitals. The treatment of indigent and uninsured patients is a huge financial drain upon the health system, especially in areas where no public hospitals are available.

While EMTLA does not prohibit care providers from asking about a patient’s ability to pay, it does make it very clear that emergency treatment cannot be delayed while ability to pay is being checked. Essentially, the law establishes a “treat first, ask questions later” policy. This policy serves a dual purpose by protecting both private hospitals and patients. Private hospitals are protected because they can deny non-emergency care based upon ability to pay and patients are protected because refusal or delay of emergency care based on means to pay is illegal.-----

So this existing "right" happened under Ronald Reagan's watch:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Medical_Treatment_and_Active_Labor_Act---------------The cost of emergency care required by EMTALA is not directly covered by the federal government. Because of this, the law has been criticized by some as an unfunded mandate. Uncompensated care represents 6% of total hospital costs.---------------

Perhaps this helps explain the outrageous "book values" hospitals have for people who don't have insurance. Hospitals jack up all their prices by a huge margin, and see what insurance companies will pay. this is called the Chargemaster rate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chargemaster-------In the United States, the chargemaster, also known as charge master, or charge description master (CDM), is a comprehensive listing of items billable to a hospital patient or a patient's health insurance provider. In practice, it usually contains highly inflated prices at several times that of actual costs to the hospital. The chargemaster typically serves as the starting point for negotiations with patients and health insurance providers of what amount of money will actually be paid to the hospital.------

So individuals who try to avoid going through an insurance company to get healthcare get screwed.

In years past it was claimed the majority of bankruptcies were related to healthcare costs, although fortunately for bill collectors bankrupcy laws were changed in 2005 to make it harder to file Chapter 7, canceling all debt and forces most people into Chapter 13, where they have to negotiate only a fraction of their debt cleared.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_Abuse_Prevention_and_Consumer_Protection_Act

It'll be interesting if 2017 isn't the year Minnesota can go its own way. Apparently there's some federal limitation that expires next year.http://mnhealthplan.org/

And we all know as soon as President Trump or Cruz is elected, ACA will be instantly repealed, so we'll have extra incentive to see what a state can do.

And who knows if Minnesota might be a "small business" magnet as people quit their 9-5 job to go their own way, knowing they have health care support without paying more than their annual profits for the first 5 years of operation.

But I admit my personal perspective is a middle ground - there ought to be a minimum level of "health care as a right", and this level will be much lower than what most people will want.

So I imagine we do need a "two tier" health care future, where basic health care is "free" in the sense of pay through collective taxes rather than on a "per usage" basis. Or perhaps we'd identify services as: (1) Free care (2) Subsidized care (3) Optional care.

And whatever policies exist, habits are hard to break, like some people will continue to avoid seeing a doctor until they have to go to the emergency room, even when they have coverage.

Sometimes I agree with the idea of token "free stuff" if it encourages people to see a doctor who might find other things wrong. Like I heard that argument in regards to Viagra - sexual dysfunction can be related to health problems, so if free viagra helps a person identify a heart problem before they have a heart attack, that's a bonus.

On the other side, I don't know how we could reduce the obesity epidemic. I suppose an economist argument would be to subsidize treatments to prevent diseases that cause long slow deaths, and promote those that cause quick cheap deaths. Heart attacks aren't the worst way to go and you get to live on the edge until the very end.